Tiny Needle Detour

 I sat down to stitch Sunday morning and had a technical difficulty. The fabric on the back of my little sheep sampler was driving me crazy. I love the grime catcher that I use for the big sheep sampler so I thought I would christen the new sewing room with a simple project.

 I found a tutorial on YouTube.

Then I picked some fabric from my now nicely displayed fabric stash. I'm finally done and all the bits and bobs fit on the two shelves I had claimed for them. It does make such a difference when you can actually see what you own.

In no time I had a mini grime catcher ready to tuck all that extra fabric into......

.... and the alphabet done.

I didn't get the words started like I had planned but I did get some of the tiny trees stitched on this sampler. Soon it will be back to the Sheep Virtues for July.
Where did June go?

Back in Business

After living for weeks in what looked like a storage bin it's been nice to have my work spaces back again. It's been slow going for the project on the loom but at least it's going.

Same for Rainbow Kitty. He now has a red stripe.

 I've been spinning along to the Women't World Cup now that I can see the TV again. I am close to finishing this second bobbin.

I am also still working my way through the fabric stash. Every morning I get up, do my chores and then fold up about this many mini-bolts. So far I've had room to stash them but I may have to make some hard decisions soon. I'm running out of shelf space.

Tea for One

 I needed to christen the new soap work area but I was nervous. That shiny new floor is scary. I make a mess when I do soapy stuff so I decided to start out with something simple.

 I bought a kit to make bath tea.

It comes with a giant bag of dried herbs and flowers that smells like roses and mint. It's actually dried chamomile, rose petals, juniper berries, rosemary and spearmint.

 There are also lots of little bags of European spa salts. I also added some coconut milk, yogurt and baking soda to the recipe.

They are fun to make. You fill these giant tea bags with the mixture....

 ...and then heat seal it.

Before I knew it I had a big pile of them. In the summer it's nice to have a good soak that doesn't involve any added oils or citric acid. I love my bath fizzies but you can definitely overdo them.

These are a nice change. Simple and soothing.....but you don't want to play with them or let them drift under running water. You just have to let them float gently. All that coarse salt takes a long time to melt. I can tell you that those flowers and herbs are a mess to clean up out of the tub if it bursts open if for some strange reason you decide to give it a squeeze. It took me a couple of baths to finally get it right-but it was worth it.

Done, Done and Not Done

 The stripey man socks are done. It took some brain power to get the stripes to work out where the knot was but I figured it out. These are Felici.

 The other stripey pair are off the needles too. These are Cascade.

 The naughty needle pair is just where I left it-broken needle and all. I am waiting for some nickle plated fixed circulars from Knit Picks. I've learned my lesson with the pretty wood ones.

Finally, my handspun Hitchhiker has 25 teeth now. I've been trying to get a tooth on a day but you know how that goes. Life has a bad habit of getting in the way.

Summer Surprise Giveaway!!!

When my tub looks like this I know it's time to unload some soap. I've tried all of the latest cures and they are all wonderful.

 I wasn't fussy or fancy. I just plopped the colors in on top of each other.

They colors are made from clay and the tops are sprinkled with lots of different colors of sea salt.

They are big, rustic looking bars. The Mister really liked them.

He's already used up several of them and asked for more.

 They all smell the same. I used up all my "spa" scents and I am not too fond of any of them so they are all on the mildly scented side.

Since you can't describe a spa scent other than to say it smells like something vaguely familiar, I called them all the same thing: Sea Salt & Clay.

I've got about 30 bars to re-home.

 I've also started working on the card that will ride along.

So......if you want to participate just send me your mailing info on Ravelry or at araigneessoapshop@gmail.com and sometime this summer just when you least expect it, I will send you one of the beach bars-my choice this time. Surprise!

Ikea Fail

 We are back to this again. We took a trip to Ikea on Wednesday because I wanted another peg board and some shelves to put over the sewing machine table.

I decided on these simple box shelves.

 I would show you the finished job but.......it's not done. I didn't do my homework and didn't know to buy the separately sold hanging brackets. Grrrrr..........Since it's a long hike up there I had to order them online.

 Darn. I really wanted to set up my sewing pegboard but it will have to wait. The more I get done, the more I have to do. Ikea I love you but would it have killed you to put a reminder on the boxes to pick up the brackets?

Needles and Pins

 This is the last of the piles. Everything else that was heaped in my living area has found a place or a new home.

 This is the spot where I am making the mini bolts for the shelf in the new sewing nook.

 I am addicted to making these cute little things. Who knew it was so much fun? The only problem was that I ran out of pins. The tutorial I was following has you pin the backs.

 So off I went to Micheal's to pick up pins. It was on the way home from Ikea which is a whole other story for another day but look what I found. The Caron X Bamboo was on sale. Half price. I bought a bunch of all the prettiest colors.

One night when I couldn't sleep I played with Caron's online pattern site where you can actually change the hat colors to find the combo you like best. This pattern is for the bulky wool X but I can't do wool on my head because of the itch factor so I'm going to see what I can figure out with the bamboo/acrylic worsted.

Now about those pins I went for. I had no idea pins were so darn expensive. $3.99 for a small package. I even stopped at Walmart to see if I could do better and they were $2.99 which I still thought was a lot.  At least they came with a container. Micheal's did not. Now that I know how pricey they are I'm going to take better care of them for sure. Who knew? Of course this is all coming from someone who thinks nothing of plopping down $30 for some sock yarn.